Allentown mayor creates PAC, may announce bid for governor Sunday.

September 06, 2013|By Emily Opilo and Scott Kraus, Of The Morning Call

Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski is expected Sunday to announce his candidacy for governor and has created campaign and fundraising committees for the formidable task.

Paperwork for a political action committee called Pawlowski for Governor was filed with the state last month and advertised in The Morning Call on Friday.

Campaign officials said Friday the mayor would make a decision about whether to run in the next few days, but Pawlowski is expected to announce his bid this weekend. MSNBC confirmed that the mayor has booked a 10 a.m. appearance on Melissa Harris-Perry's Sunday talk show.

"We've been exploring for two years," said Mike Fleck, Pawlowski's campaign manager. "It's time to make a decision. Campaigns are gearing up around the state."

Pawlowski, 48, has been coy about his intentions to run for statewide office, particularly as he makes a bid for his third term as Allentown's mayor, but it has been no secret he's been entertaining the idea. Pawlowski's name has shown up in polling for the 2014 Democratic gubernatorial primary, and there also have been rumblings he could be interested in a run for lieutenant governor.

Pawlowski would join a crowded Democratic gubernatorial field. Candidates seeking the job include Philadelphia-area Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz and York businessman Tom Wolf, as well as former Department of Environmental Protection chiefs Katie McGinty and John Hanger. State Treasurer Rob McCord has also expressed interest.

Republican Gov. Tom Corbett's perceived vulnerability has encouraged the broad field of candidates and that could work to Pawlowski's advantage, political observers say. But the Allentown mayor will find it difficult to raise enough money for television advertising and to build a statewide political organization.

Like Schwartz, McGinty and McCord also come from the Philadelphia area. That could divide the large pot of Democratic votes in the southeast. Pawlowski's best strategy might be to try and roll up votes in central, western and northeastern Pennsylvania.

"It gives him a chance to leave Philadelphia to those people and work the Lehigh Valley, the northeast and [he] may be one of the ones who competes for votes in western Pennsylvania," said Larry Ceisler, a Philadelphia-based Democratic political consultant unaffiliated with any campaign.

But he'll have to compete for those votes with Wolf, who has suggested he would spend as much of $10 million of his own money in the primary, and with Hanger, who is running a low-budget grass-roots campaign. Campaign finance records show Pawlowski has been traversing the state this year, making stops in Pittsburgh, Erie, Centre County and Philadelphia.

Pawlowski's local campaign fund, Friends of Ed Pawlowski, had only $112,135 when his last report was filed in June. Citizens for Pennsylvania Progress, his existing statewide PAC bought in $3,290 in 2012, but the majority came from Pawlowski's campaign fund. The PAC raised $2,000 in early 2013 made up of $1,000 from state Rep. Dan McNeill's campaign fund and $1,000 from Citizens for a Greater Reading, a political action committee with ties to Fleck Consulting.

This summer Pawlowski launched an effort to promote Citizens for Pennsylvania Progress. A "kickoff" campaign breakfast was held in Erie in June hosted by Pawlowski, and in July the mayor reached out to his supporters in two emails to talk up his committee's new website.

Democratic operatives say Pawlowski will need to raise at least $1.5 to $3 million to get his message in front of enough people to make a credible run. And party operatives say some of the biggest Democratic donors have opted to sit out the primary to devote their energies to unseating Corbett in the fall.

"A campaign for governor is a grueling 24-7 endeavor that rarely lets the candidate come up for air," said T.J. Rooney, former Pennsylvania Democratic Party chairman and a consultant who is backing McGinty. "It is a full-time, full-time endeavor, and it is so multifaceted at times it makes your head spin."

Fleck said he expects Pawlowski's fundraising efforts to be "competitive" if he decides to run.

"We're going to run a grass-roots campaign," he said. "If he would decide to run, he has the best story to tell."

Downtown Allentown is being transformed under Pawlowski's watch, thanks to a special taxing district centered on a hockey arena project. The mayor also found a creative way to solve a serious pension problem.

A hotly contested primary race to unseat a sitting governor is new territory in Pennsylvania, Ceisler pointed out.

An incumbent governor has never lost a re-election bid in Pennsylvania, leading the party seeking control of the governor's mansion to field weak mid-term candidates, often in uncontested primaries. Of course, Corbett's poll numbers — one in five believe he's earned another term — are extremely low.